For years I had a wonderful Golden retriever at a time when I also had chickens and homing pigeons. He was never a problem with any of them. One day my son's friend wanted to borrow him for hunting ducks. So I decided to teach him to carry a bird, using a pigeon. At first he was reluctant. No, no, I'm not supposed to bother the birds. But I told him to Take It, and he did. What a transformation! You could see in his face that he realized that this - THIS - was what he was born for! He pranced around carrying the bird for quite a while, never harming it, until I had him return it to the loft and release it. Unfortunately, when I took him hunting with the kid, he shied at the sound of the gun, made a bee line for the truck and never showed his face again for the rest of the day. But his attitude toward the domestic birds never changed. He was completely reliable with them. Hunting dogs, IMO, are like any other. They have to be desensitized to the birds through controlled proximity, and they have to be trained.